What Exit Theatre: Reviews

Reviews

2 big talents: Actors juggle multiple roles to keep
What Exit? audience in their pockets

Wednesday, April 07, 2004
BY PETER FILICHIA
Star-Ledger Staff

That old theatrical saw that goes , "There are no small parts, only small actors"?
Not in " Stones in His Pockets ," the hit play now at the What Exit? Theatre Company of Maplewood.

Martins' accomplished production, Richard Furlong and Steven Cole Hughes have two big parts. Through them, they prove that they are indeed big actors.

In fact, they're the whole show. Though Marie Jones' comedy-drama concerns the filming of a movie in rural Ireland, Furlong and Hughes play each and every person on the set.

The ample-bodied Furlong at one moment is the aloof and grand Caroline Giovanni, the film's leading lady, before turning around to play her no-nonsense bodyguard -- before spinning around again to portray the movie's long-suffering director who glares at his assistant Ashley when she makes a (rare) mistake.

Ashley is played by Hughes, who lifts his leg backward to show the lass's excitable nature, nervousness, and sexual insouciance, too. But a second later, Hughes is crouching arthritically to play an infirm man who was on the scene when "The Quiet Man" was filmed in the same Irish village in 1951. Then Hughes bolts up straight to portray Sean, the local who's "addicted to drugs and movies" -- and is furious when he isn't chosen to be in the film.

Most of the time, though, Furlong portrays Charlie and Hughes is Jake -- local guys who jumped at the chance to be extras. After all, they have nothing else going on in their lives. Jake won't even mention the last job he had. Charlie ran a video-rental store, but was forced out by some blockbuster company.

As thrilled as Charlie and Jake were to be selected, they're now equally disillusioned, for they're treated no better than the cows who are providing just as much local color. Charlie and Jake may be making 40 pounds a day, but they never get an ounce of respect.

Still, Jones' script is valuable in showing that the making of any film is a small miracle. The playwright will make even the most jaundiced Hollywood-hater feel a bit of admiration for the film industry.

Nevertheless, more admiration is due the actors. That they are accomplished is one thing, but that wouldn't mean much if they didn't have the right chemistry together. Furlong and Hughes certainly do, and spend the evening beautifully feeding and playing off the other.

They're at their best in a scene where Caroline Giovanni decides to slum with one of the "simple, uncomplicated, and contented" townies, and chooses Jake, to Charlie's profound chagrin. Caroline ostensibly wants to study his accent, but Furlong shows that she really wants to be admired and thought of as lovely just for mingling with the common folk.

Hughes, meanwhile, is a nervous yokel who works hard to sit in a way that makes him look alluring. Yet much later in the show, he'll drop the subservient posing in a scene where the extra gives Giovanni something extra -- and something she deserves.

These are just two of many worthy scenes in "Stones in His Pockets." For two hours, the pair performs in front of Fred Kinney's handsome but ominous curtain (which shows a couple of threatening thunderclouds in the sky) and that most valuable of theatrical properties: The trunk full of costumes. Luckily, the play has an intermission so the two proteans can get at least 10 minutes of rest, which they well deserve.

Theatergoers, though, won't be able to wait for the two of them to get back to work.

Laughing at death: Black humor enlivens farce taking place on Christmas Eve

Wednesday, December 10, 2003
BY PETER FILICHIA
Star-Ledger Staff

The What Exit? Theatre Company of Maplewood has in past Decembers offered such heartwarming holiday fare as "It's a Wonderful Life" and "Miracle on 34th Street."

Not this year.

Anthony Neilson's "The Lying Kind" may be set on Christmas Eve, but all is neither calm nor bright. The characters include a transvestite and a dominatrix, and its subject matter involves pedophilia, sexual harassment, exhibitionism and senility, among other matters.

It's a show no connoisseur of farce should miss.

It takes an enormous risk right away, as two British police officers arrive at a Manchester home to tell an aged couple their daughter has been killed in an accident. While that suggests the blackest of comedies, Neilson circumvents bad taste by having the officers argue so vociferously -- and lengthily -- about which of them should ring the bell that the situation quickly becomes funny and then funnier still.

When they finally do summon the courage, the mother of the deceased emerges, wailing, "She's dead, isn't she? She's dead! I knew it! I had a feeling!" The officers are much relieved -- until they hear the punch line. The officers still have an unpleasant job to do, and they continue to postpone it. There is much absurdist dialogue along the way. ("Remember that time when Raquel went off with that hot dog man on your honeymoon?")

Good as the show is under Bell Wesel's solid direction, it would have been much better with another set. At first glance, designer Fred Kinney is to be commended for deciding that a topsy-turvy play demands more than a standard issue middle-class living room. So he built the stage on a slant. The left side is substantially higher, sloping down to the right. Think of the Titanic sinking. Farce, however, depends on split-second timing. When the actors travel up the incline, they move too slowly, and, of course, too quickly down the slippery slope.

There are sharp performances nevertheless. Steve Ahern and Ames Adamson work well together as the boobie bobbies, Ahern's pomposity playing a good Hardy to Adamson's Laurel. As the mother, Noreen Farley is Maggie Smith on amphetamines. Burt Edwards is an appropriately clueless father. Rick Delaney is wonderfully unctuous and superbly silly as the vicar who comes by to console the couple. Bev Sheehan, What Exit's artistic director, is in the show as the whip-wielding leather-clad neighbor.

Like any good farce, "The Lying Kind" has a serious agenda concerning incompetent police and hypocritical clergy. Many theatergoers won't take to it at any time of the year. But to the more cynical among us, it's a farce for all seasons.

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